It got cold

Well... predictably, it got cold here.  The last week of classes is almost over.  Have been real busy and not much time to update this in a while.  It got cold here surprisingly fast but it really hasn't been too bad.  It's about -27*F right now and has been around -20 the past week or so.  My walk to class is only about 15 minutes.  The first few days of -20 was rough but then I bought some sweatpants to wear under my jeans and it's much better... I just need to learn to work a freaking scarf, they're impossible.

This is called ice-fog.  It happens a lot in Alaska and can only happen in real cold places in the world.  It's actually suspended ice crystals - so essentially water vapor freezes in the air and creates fog.  It hasn't been bad but I guess when it's really cold it can get pretty thick.

Cars here all have little plugs dangling out the front at some place... they actually go to a splitter, then to a block heater, which is just a heating element installed into the soft-plug of the engine.  (The soft-plug is just a rubber plug in the engine somewhere so that if it gets so cold the water/coolant in the engine freezes, it will pop open instead of cracking the entire engine block).  There's also a battery blanket and oil pan and transmission pan heaters.  Once it's cold enough, it gets very tough to start the engine without keeping things a little warm.  All of the stores and parking lots on campus and other places have "plug-ins" where they are typically just outlets in the wall or on a post and everyone just carries around an extension cord and plugs in their car... I'll have to take a better picture, it's somewhat amusing looking.

Today, the sun rose at 10:01am and set at 3:43pm.  It's really not that bad, with all the homework I've had I barely notice anyway.  The constant sunset is very cool though, here's a good idea of what it's like:

Thanksgiving was relaxing, just stayed in and got caught up on some homework all week.  We had freezing rain Sunday night through Wednesday before Thanksgiving and everything shut down.  The roads had about an inch of ice on them and most still do in patches.  They don't really plow here because it doesn't snow much, the cars just pack down the snow and it gets blown off to the sides but they dump gravel on the roads and it gets pressed into the ice for traction.  They don't have salt here so the whole town practically shut down from the freezing rain.  The only plows I've seen here are giant construction graders for the streets, and little tractors with spinning bristles on the front for sidewalks.

Fairbanks hasn't had rain in November since 1936 so it was quite the rare occasion and I was pretty happy to get the full week off for Thanksgiving instead of just Thursday and Friday.  I wasn't on the roads but I heard there were cars off the roads every couple feet, especially out of town on Monday morning.  They even canceled the public bus service for the day.  Not my photo but here's Ballaine Rd in Fairbanks that Monday:




And to end this post on a lighter note, they built a Harry Potter ice sculpture outside of the Wendy's here (right next to the movie theater) for the opening night of Deathly Hallows Pt. 1.  And I recently dined at the northernmost Denny's in the world.